Nothing is Different, but Everything's Changed
by GoldeneyedJohnnycake
Summary: It's been a while since I did a character sketch, and this one turned into an angsty one-shot. Sorry if Pony seems OOC, I'm wrestling with a severe case of writer's block.


**A/N:** ** _S. E. Hinton owns all rights to the characters in The Outsiders and her other stories, I only own my imagination. This was inspired by an idle phrase I thought of while watching a completely unrelated movie. And for the record, I do always hate it when anyone named Johnny dies. The title and quote are taken from a Paul Simon song, which is slightly anachronistic for the timeline I'm working with, but I hope you'll forgive me. This may not be the best story, I wrote this to ward off more writer's block._**

I always hate it when Johnny dies. I somehow skip over that part in my mind whenever I think of that night, all the way to the point when the phone rang. That's what I remember most; that phone ringing and the moment just before Darry answered it. That felt like the longest moment in the world. Even longer than the split second before Dallas was killed, joining Johnny at last in the big sleep. He didn't look at all peaceful. I think people lie when they say corpses look peaceful- they just look dead. Like a candle extinguished for the final time.

The graveyard is the only place where I can face the facts. Johnny and Dallas are dead, I saw both of them go with my own eyes, and now they're six feet under, forever young in my mind. I don't exactly remember why or how I started talking to them, maybe I always had, but talking helps me deal with their absence. I keep half-expecting them to show up in the living room when I wander out to watch the sunrise before work. I know it's stupid, I mean, I have a kid of my own now. Why should I pine away after ghosts when my son is alive and well in the room down the hall? It doesn't make a lick of sense, really.

Speaking of my kid, he often reminds me of Johnny unintentionally. Mostly they're just little glimpses of my friend in the way he pushes his hair away from his face, how he reads with his brows knit together, even down to how he wipes his nose. He doesn't see it, but both Cathy and I did. I didn't want to tell her that our son's a replacement for Johnny, but I think she gathered as much anyway. She was quite the sharp cookie, and I sometimes wonder if she wanted to adopt the kid so I could deal with my grief. It's not the most logical option, but it's the only one I've got, since I can't ask her anymore. I wouldn't have asked her that to begin with. Knowing her, she would've reluctantly laughed it off like I'd said some kind of tasteless joke.

I don't have flashbacks or anything, but the nightmares rear their ugly heads around the end of September each year. I can't do a thing but watch Johnny die, Dallas break, and finally hear the phone and the gunshots. They're like scenes in a movie more than anything else, and when I wake up, I always find the pillow dampened with tears and sweat. It takes me forever to get back to sleep because I can't join Soda on the couch. I won't bring myself to admit that I have nightmares still, especially in front of my older brother, who has more problems than I could ever dream of. Both of them do, if I'm being completely honest.

It's funny, when I was fourteen, I never saw myself how I eventually ended up- teaching English as a single dad who lives at his old house with the rest of his family and an adopted son. I thought my life would be much different, and that Johnny and Dallas would still be in it. Just goes to show you how the game of life is played, I guess. I don't know what I did to deserve this, maybe Randy was right when he said things would never change. Greasers and Socs don't exist anymore, but that doesn't mean anything's different. I'm the same bratty, idealistic punk I always was when you look past the greying hair and bifocals. The only things that are different now are that two of my friends and my wife are gone, my brother and other friends were fucked up by the war, and I have a kid to take care of. It's just like that song says, ' _Nothing is different, but everything's changed_ '. I just wish it hadn't.


End file.
